kaushiki Vocal

Ajay Joglekar on Harmonium

Kaushiki Chakrabarty could reproduce Hindustani classical vocal patterns at the age of two. Maestros visiting the ITC Sangeet Research Academy (SRA), where Kaushiki grew up, soon discovered a new game: they would hurl the most complex of patterns at her, using only the ‘aa’ vowel instead of pronouncing the notes, and wait for her to identify the notes and reproduce the patterns. This is something she could do instantly and consistently. At 12, she was a scholar at the ITC SRA, at 14, she was on a 50-concert tour in the US with her father and guru Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, at 16, she took the world of music by storm with her first solo concert in Delhi and by her early twenties she was being hailed as the brightest young female vocalist of her generation. Over the last decade, she has successfully obliterated the gender qualifier. Connoisseurs agree that Kaushiki is, quite simply, the best Hindustani vocalist of her generation today.

 Kaushiki has performed at the prestigious Dover Lane Music Conference in Kolkata for nine years between 2000-2012. She has performed twice at the Sawai Gandharva Sangeet Mahotsava in Pune. She has performed multiple times at the Tansen Samaroh in Gwalior, at the Harbhallab Sangeet Sammelan in Jalandhar and at Saptak festival in Ahmedabad. No other vocalist of her generation has had the privilege of performing in every major Hindustani music festival in India.

Kaushiki began her training under her mother Chandana Chakrabarty. Subsequently, she learnt from the legendary Pandit Jnan Prakash Ghosh, before becoming a disciple of her father, vocal maestro Pandit Ajoy Chakrabarty, under whom she continues to learn. Her taalim under her three gurus, especially her father, has ensured that she has equal command over the various vocal forms that fall under the umbrella of Hindustani music.

Her prowess as a khayal singer is well known, but she is adept at singing other ‘light classical’ genres like thumri, dadra, kajri, chaiti, bhajan etc. Whatever her chosen form, her singing is characterized by a fine balance of virtuosity, intellectual rigor and aesthetic sensibility. Her mature vistaars in khayal and her emotionally charged improvisations in thumris are as powerful as her supersonic taans across three and a half octaves. Though she is one of the foremost representatives of the Patiala Gharana today – and of Ustad Bade Ghulam Ali Khan’s gayaki – she has analyzed every aspect of the gharana before internalizing it.

Kaushiki’s versatility has enabled her to be part of several projects outside the traditional space of Hindustani music. She has sung for music director A.R. Rahman for the film Water and has shared album space with the likes of Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and Lata Mangeshkar in Jana Gana Mana, also produced by Rahman. Recently, Kaushiki has lent her voice to a number of film soundtracks like Chaplin, Chitrangada,Panch Adhyay, Shunyo and Awnko working with music directors like Shantanu Moitra.

Kaushiki has recorded many albums and has received several prestigious awards, including the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Purashkar (awarded by the Government of India) in 2012, the BBC award for outstanding achievement in 2005, and the GIMA award for her album ‘Yatra 2’ in 2012.